In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood–
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.

~ Theodore Roethke, In a Dark Time

The downward path brought on by external situations invites a different kind of practice than what is meant by descent or “downward mobility” as an intentional, fully conscious spiritual path modeled on Jesus’ own kenotic journey (Phil. 2:5-11). The kenosis (act of self-emptying) of Jesus’ life was a conscious sign of contradiction over against the life trajectory of the privileged and powerful in his day and certainly the upward mobility championed in our day.

The path of descent has always had two primary portals: one opens when circumstances (e.g. disappointment, loss of work, physical or mental disabilities, a miscarriage or divorce, depression, shame, tragedy, loss of a loved one, abuse of some kind, PTSD, civil unrest, etc.), sabotage our best made plans calling forth our courage to go where we’d rather not go — down into the depths — and the other opens by our deliberate choice to pursue the deep, “to die and so to grow” so that we do not discover when it’s too late that we have become nothing more than “a troubled guest on this dark earth.” (Goethe)

In emails informing me of your current downward struggles, some of you have blessed me with personal and powerful reflections on your experiences of consciously “moving downward.” Most recently a moving poem by FJ, whose words are worth remembering when life itself pulls us down: “I must go with compassion, / Not with control,” and an eloquent and thoughtful writing by SG on the meaning of St. Paul’s choice of the word kenosis (often translated as self-emptying) in the ancient Christian Hymn found in Philippians 2:5-11 cited above.

In a rather graphic and therefore memorable image, psychologist and author James Hollis refers to the subterranean places into which life seems to force us to descend as the “swamplands of the soul.” When I was a boy, my brothers and sisters, neighborhood friends, and I used to play in a place we called The Sandbanks. It was a child’s delight, offering both young bodies and young minds plenty of room to run wild. Although just a block and a half from my house and surrounded by neighborhood homes on all four sides, it was nonetheless a place of natural wildness as of yet undefiled by the ruinous designs of adults complete with trails, thick bushes, tall trees, stretches of dirt and sand, the proverbial battlefield hill with the strategic sunlit view, enough dirt clods to ambush any unsuspecting enemy-of-the-day, and unbeknown to most passersby, whether on foot or in cars, a swamp. In my memory the swamp is equally alluring and terrifying, dark and wet and hidden. Just a matter of 20 or 30 yards from the street and the sand and the light of day, it had its own sounds and smells and stories, and more than once I feared falling into the putrid marshy water (or was it black quicksand) never to be seen or heard from again. So, Hollis’ image is a vivid and evocative one for me.

Thinking back on my childhood days playing in the bog beneath the Sandbanks, I came to realize the truth and the wisdom in (and yes my resistance to) Hollis’ main assertion: that, there is meaning to be found and transforming moments to be encountered in the swamplands that are not found anywhere else, that there is, to use the words from his subtitle, “New life in dismal places.”

But swampland wisdom is grounded in and wrested from the dark reality of life and therefore never bound to sell many books nor susceptible to airy sloganeering like every cloud has a silver lining.

Hollis writes: “Unless we are able to look at the existential discrepancies between what we long for and what we experience, unless we consciously address the task of personal spirituality, we will remain forever in flight, or denial, or think of ourselves as victims, sour and mean-spirited to ourselves and others.”

He continues, and what he says next about the thought, motive, and practice of Jungian psychology is, I believe, consistent with the wisdom and worldview of an authentic Christian spirituality. He writes,

There is no sunlit meadow, no restful bower of easy sleep; there are rather swamplands of the soul where nature, our nature, intends that we live a good part of the journey, and from whence many of the most meaningful moments of our lives will derive. It is the swamplands where soul is fashioned and forged, where we encounter not only the gravitas of life, but its purpose, its dignity and its deepest meaning.

When life brings us down into the boogey-manned bog, we must fight to stay awake and (for as long as is necessary) to stay put because there are things that grow only there, truths that can only be revealed there, gifts that can only be received there, new sight that can only be gained in the dark there, and a type of mystery that can only be entered into there. The hard to believe word is that the Swamplands of the soul want to grow us not drown us. It is only there that we grow in certain unmatched ways.

In difficult times temptations arise: denial, avoidance, anger, resentment, minimizing the situation, spiritual platitudes that fail to touch the depth of the experience, despair, blaming (God or others), making excuses for bad behavior, lashing out, and many other less than healthy or helpful responses. The temptation is to choose for some spiritual bypass to get “over” the situation. But getting over is not only ineffective long term, it is impossible. The only healthy, effective, and faithful way is to face the difficulty head on, to stay fully aware alert, and open, to descend into the swampland, and with the company of grace, or if circumstances allow, with family and friends, to “go through” the frustration or fear or pain or loss or grief or abyss-mal situation and come out on the other side.

These difficult situations arise, I believe, not as the manifestation of a divine test from which we can learn another life lesson. To think this way, it seems to me, is an affront to God and a gross belittlement of a trying if not traumatizing situation. But anyone beyond the age of reason who has watched shiny-skulled seven year olds making commercials for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital or who has a pulse and lives in a family and a neighborhood or goes to school or church knows even before they can articulate it that sh*t happens, and that bad things happen to good people. But grace happens as well and, I believe, has the last word.

The way of Jesus’ kenotic surrender makes little sense in a culture that celebrates and awards those hellbent on power, prestige, and possessions and whose theme song is “Up, Up, and Away.” The Christ-path is counter-intuitive as well as counter-cultural. But the downward mobility of Jesus life as a chosen spiritual path can be a source of illumination and encouragement (as opposed to pollyannaish drivel) for us during those times (and they will come, if they have not already visited us many times) when we are forced to descend to and dwell in the swamplands of life. But as Hollis insists, any and all swamplands bear the possibility of being the swamplands of the soul where hidden grace hides and abides. In such times, may we be kind and courageous and wise enough merely to abide with others in the deepening shade of their swampland and graced with companions who know simply how to abide with us when we find ourselves there as well.♦